+Grusas is a really interesting bishop — and very possibly a future cardinal. I suspect a Pillar interview with him would be enlightening on multiple subjects.
I guess I'd like to know JD and Ed's personal odds that this Synod is going to cause a massive, worldwide schism in the Church. It seems more and more likely to me now. Dissenting bishops used to merely nudge around the edges of these topics with euphemism and misdirection, but now it is all out in the open.
This article is what concerns me most about the Synod. A Synod on Synodality seems like it should be a Synod on listening to local concerns and adapting as needed (within doctrinal bounds). But the more and more I read on it, the more it sounds like people are making it a Synod on collecting opinions and making a global to do list: going from local, meaningful consultative processes to one cacophonous shouting match in Rome from people with very different needs.
It's like the Synod on the Amazon. The Pope says we're having a Synod discussing the marginalized native peoples of the Amazon and ecology, then everyone makes it about Married Priests, then the Pope writes a document on the marginalized native peoples of the Amazon and some people lost their ever loving minds over it.
A striking fact of this pontificate, made all the more striking by the unprecedented creations of cardinals from far flung and marginalized parts of the world, is that Francis has not created cardinal a single diocesan bishop from Eastern Europe.
Konrad Krajewski, a Pole, and Michael Czerny, a Czech by birth, are curial officials.
I should be clear that I have no problems with Francis' diversifying the college of cardinals, in fact I quite support it. But it is a little interesting, one has to admit, that the church in eastern europe has been noticeably left out.
What are the odd that this whole process is just a Long Con by Pope Francis to show how power-hundry prelates distort the myriad concerns and needs of the local churches into totalizing global agendas that just happen to align perfectly with their own political beliefs? I personally can't wait for him to jump out at the end and yell, "Sike! Gotcha good!"
Large swaths of the Catholic laity and clergy in countries like Ireland and Germany seem to consider it axiomatic that a Catholic Church that pivots to embracing women priests, married priests, same-sex marriage, contraception, abortion, etc. will regain its erstwhile relevance and popularity in their nations. There are a couple big problems with this. (1) Various protestant sects, including state churches in Scandinavia, have already adopted these liberal innovations, and no sort of renaissance followed. In fact, declines in participation accelerated. (2) Does not a Catholic Church that jettisons its unpopular but venerable positions run the risk of alienating its core group of faithful who still support those teachings? In other words, the disaffected won't come back, and the devout will feel betrayed and be tempted to leave too.
+Grusas is a really interesting bishop — and very possibly a future cardinal. I suspect a Pillar interview with him would be enlightening on multiple subjects.
I guess I'd like to know JD and Ed's personal odds that this Synod is going to cause a massive, worldwide schism in the Church. It seems more and more likely to me now. Dissenting bishops used to merely nudge around the edges of these topics with euphemism and misdirection, but now it is all out in the open.
This article is what concerns me most about the Synod. A Synod on Synodality seems like it should be a Synod on listening to local concerns and adapting as needed (within doctrinal bounds). But the more and more I read on it, the more it sounds like people are making it a Synod on collecting opinions and making a global to do list: going from local, meaningful consultative processes to one cacophonous shouting match in Rome from people with very different needs.
It's like the Synod on the Amazon. The Pope says we're having a Synod discussing the marginalized native peoples of the Amazon and ecology, then everyone makes it about Married Priests, then the Pope writes a document on the marginalized native peoples of the Amazon and some people lost their ever loving minds over it.
A striking fact of this pontificate, made all the more striking by the unprecedented creations of cardinals from far flung and marginalized parts of the world, is that Francis has not created cardinal a single diocesan bishop from Eastern Europe.
Konrad Krajewski, a Pole, and Michael Czerny, a Czech by birth, are curial officials.
I should be clear that I have no problems with Francis' diversifying the college of cardinals, in fact I quite support it. But it is a little interesting, one has to admit, that the church in eastern europe has been noticeably left out.
What are the odd that this whole process is just a Long Con by Pope Francis to show how power-hundry prelates distort the myriad concerns and needs of the local churches into totalizing global agendas that just happen to align perfectly with their own political beliefs? I personally can't wait for him to jump out at the end and yell, "Sike! Gotcha good!"
Large swaths of the Catholic laity and clergy in countries like Ireland and Germany seem to consider it axiomatic that a Catholic Church that pivots to embracing women priests, married priests, same-sex marriage, contraception, abortion, etc. will regain its erstwhile relevance and popularity in their nations. There are a couple big problems with this. (1) Various protestant sects, including state churches in Scandinavia, have already adopted these liberal innovations, and no sort of renaissance followed. In fact, declines in participation accelerated. (2) Does not a Catholic Church that jettisons its unpopular but venerable positions run the risk of alienating its core group of faithful who still support those teachings? In other words, the disaffected won't come back, and the devout will feel betrayed and be tempted to leave too.